Israel Moves Ahead With Plan to Build in Jerusalem Gilo Area

By Gwen Ackerman -
Dec 25, 2012

Israel moved forward with plans to
build 1,200 new homes in east Jerusalem’s Gilo today, bringing
to 2,700 the units to be constructed in an area the Palestinians
seek as the capital of a future state.

“What is now necessary is to complete the bureaucratic
process and receive the final approval to register and advertise
the plan,” the Interior Ministry said in an e-mailed statement.
“After that it will be possible to market the land to
contractors.”

Wassel Abu Yousef, a member of the Palestine Liberation
Organization’s Executive Committee, said the new construction
drive demonstrates Israel’s “recklessness” and shows “no
respect to international law and the laws applicable to the
occupied Palestinian territories.”

The latest move comes two weeks after Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu reacted to an upgrade in Palestinian status
at the United Nations by giving preliminary approval for the
building of 3,000 housing units in the West Bank. That decision,
for an area know as E-1, brought Palestinian protests and
criticism from the U.S. and Europe.

Last week a ministry panel gave interim approval for 1,500
new homes in east Jerusalem, part of a separate project that
raised tensions with the U.S. two years ago.

Netanyahu rejects opposition to construction in east
Jerusalem, which was captured with the West Bank from Jordan in
the 1967 Middle East War. He says all parts of the city are part
of Israel’s capital, a position rejected by the UN and most
countries.

Palestinians want east Jerusalem to be the capital of a
state they seek to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.